ALL-STAR PANEL TUESDAY AT BERGTRAUM

If you are anywhere near Murry Bergtraaum High School on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m., you must stop by to see this truly distinguished panel of educators and a parent activist.

• Carol Burris- Southside HS Rockville Centre, NY; coauthor of the principal's letter against the new evaluation system
• Leonie Haimson- Executive Director of Class Size Matters and Parents Across America- Top parent activist who has defended teachers in so many forums
• Arthur Goldstein- ESL teacher and Chapter Leader from Francis Lewis High School in Queens; Arthur has been published many times in the Daily News, Gotham Schools.org, the NY Times, etc...
• Gary Rubenstein- Stuyvesant High School Teacher; Gary is also a famous blogger who crunches numbers with the best of them.

The moderator will be the star of the Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman teacher Julie Cavanaugh.

Murry Bergtraum is at 411 Pearl Street in Manhattan.  Take the 4, 5 or 6 to City Hall or the A,C,2 or 3 to Fulton Street or the R or N to City Hall

Read Carol's latest piece in the Washington Post: 

Tests are getting longer because they are now about teachers! 

WALCOTT & PRESS CHARACTER ASSASSINATION OF CHAZ PROVES WHY WE NEED INDEPENDENT ARBITRATORS

I can't believe that Chancellor Dennis Walcott and the press are using the case of Eric Chasanoff to try to make the case that the Chancellor, not independent arbitrators, should have the final say in who gets fired.  Chaz, as he is known, has defended himself very eloquently on his blog.  As his chapter leader for many years, including when he was removed from Jamaica, I feel I must add a few points on this matter to show just how ridiculous the Chancellor and the press are in trying to make Chaz the poster child for abusive teachers who get away with everything.  The press and chancellor are guilty of what  R.E.M. called "Exhuming McCarthy."

For those who do not know the story, Chaz was removed from Jamaica High School for making an awkward remark to a student and touching her on the shoulder to calm her down. The DOE tried to turn it into a sexual case so they could suspend Eric without pay after a probable cause hearing where the standard of proof is very low for the DOE.  In a probable cause hearing, a Special Commissioner of Investigations report is usually sufficient evidence to suspend someone but Chaz won his hearing.

The press quotes the Special Commissioner of Investigations report in this case as if it were the gospel but in the probable cause hearing the arbitrator found that the report was flawed as the investigator was not credible and Eric was not taken off payroll.  Chaz is one of the few people to win one of these hearings.  There was no reason for the DOE to continue at that point but they moved forward and filed 3020A charges to try to dismiss him.  In the 3020A case, once again a different arbitrator found the SCI report flawed.  Eric was fined a minimal amount for making an awkward statement to a student, which he admitted was not the wisest thing to say. Now here comes the press to dredge up the case and try to make Eric into a monster.  The record should reflect some more facts that I haven't seen anywhere else.

Eric is a very popular teacher as students would practically beg guidance counselors to be able to get into one of his earth science classes. The Daily News and NY Times never interviewed my outspoken colleague Marc Epstein or myself or they may have discovered this information.  They may also have found out that earth science grades took a nosedive after Chaz was removed from Jamaica.  He is thought of as a very good teacher.  Another teacher and I both testified to this fact at his 3020A hearing.

I also haven't seen this anywhere in the press or on Chaz's blog but it has to be noted somewhere that when the principal called Eric and me down to his office to talk about the incident that led to the 3020a case, he said specifically that this was not sexual. 


Speaking of the principal, he did not see eye to eye with Eric  This particular principal and I generally worked out issues however when it came to the Office of Special Investigations or the Commissioner of Special Investigations, he had a very quick trigger finger and would often call in a report on incidents that were purely trivial.  We used to argue about this all the time. We often would joke that the principal had OSI on speed dial and he actually had an assistant principal who had as one of his duties that he was in charge of the many OSI investigations that were kicked back to the school.

In terms of Chaz, I believe the principal was not happy because a few years earlier he called in a rather insignificant incident against Eric to OSI and it was founded but the only punishment was for Eric to receive a letter in his file.  However, Eric grieved it (those were the days when we could grieve letters that were unfair or inaccurate) and Chaz won at arbitration.  The arbitrator saw that the letter was erroneous and removed it. I remember the principal being a little perturbed when the DOE lost the arbitration.

Subsequently, he seemed to be looking for anything against Eric.  This situation worsened after the DOE was dragged to the Public Employees Relations Board by the UFT over Chaz.  The Principal also had to deal with the fact that Eric was elected multiple times to be a representative for the teachers on the School Leadership Team.  Does the press think we were all that stupid to vote him in?  After the incident that led to the unfounded probable cause hearing,  the school had the SCI investigator come back over and over again to talk to kids and seek evidence which he really never found.  This is why his report was easily picked apart by Eric's representatives.

In the end we have three separate independent arbitrators assigned to hear the two cases involving Chaz and all three figured out that there was basically nothing going on with him.  Are they all in the pocket of the UFT?  I don't think so as they are selected by and paid for equally by UFT and DOE and either side can throw an arbitrator off the panel at the end of the year.  The reality is the principal had a quick trigger finger when it came to calling the Office of Special Investigations and the Commissioner of Special Investigations on all employees and not just Eric.  The arbitrators knew there was not much there as  would any decent reporter if they bothered to do their job and investigate multiple sources and not rely on a flawed SCI report.

I don't think the Daily News will be reading this piece to try to get another take on this story but when the DOE keeps losing over and over again with independent arbitrators that they agreed to, concerning the same teacher, maybe they should admit there is nothing wrong with the process but something wrong with DOE officials and SCI investigators going on fishing expeditions to try to fire people who have done nothing to warrant their dismissal.  The arbitration process needs to be strengthened, not weakened, so we can grieve file letters again.  Due process worked for Chaz. Thankfully, we still have a semblance of it. Taking him through the mud again reminds me of the McCarthy hearings.  To Walcott, the NY Times and the Daily News I paraphrase from that time: Haven't you done enough to try to assassinate this man's character?  Have you no sense of decency?

DOE OFFICIALS DEAF AS USUAL AT BRYANT HIGH SCHOOL JOINT PUBLIC HEARING

The other night three of us from Jamaica High School traveled over to Bryant High School in Western Queens for their Joint Public Hearing.  The city wants to close this great school, and twenty-five others, including seven more large high schools in Queens.  The city would shut the schools on June 30 and reopen them the following day with a new name and around half of the staff would be new.

Teachers would have to reapply for their jobs to stay at their old schools. This so called turnaround model is being used by the city because they couldn't reach an agreement with the UFT on teacher evaluation. I strongly believe the city wants to be able to fire as many teachers as possible because, in spite of scholarly research to the contrary, it is their contention that it is the teachers who are solely to blame if students don't graduate.

The Bryant experience was painful for me because it is somewhat similar to what happened at Jamaica High school the last two years where DOE officials came to our school for Joint Public Hearings.  DOE officials at the hearings ignored everything parents, students, alumni, teachers and community activists had to say about how we had a good, viable school that should be kept open.  We were phased out by the Panel for Educational Policy in 2010 and remained open thanks to a lawsuit but the DOE closed us again in 2011 and still another lawsuit is pending on that closure. Many of us remain at Jamaica as the school phases out and we are saddened on a daily basis as our students are shortchanged in their educational experience.

Listening to our friends at Bryant, they made so many good arguments about how their fine school is a big part of the community, how there are many English Language Learners and Special Education students who needed extra time to graduate, how the alumni wanted to see their school continue and how there was so much history there, how Bryant's SAT scores beat the city average, how the kids were afraid of losing some excellent teachers and more.  DOE officials looked bored sitting on the stage and they trotted out their usual cherry-picked data to show that Bryant High School is having problems while not pointing to any statistic that makes the school look good.

UFT Treasurer Mel Aaronson spoke against the closure for the Union as did District Representative James Vasquez and LIC High School Chapter Leader Ken Achiron.  Sam Lazarus, Bryant's Chapter Leader, made an excellent presentation as did other members of the Bryant School Leadership Team and the local Community Education Council.  All speakers wanted to see Bryant remain open.  My turn came a little later as someone generously handed me their speaking ticket. (I had a very high number).

I told the nearly full auditorium how the DOE will promise resources but they will never end up in the classroom. As an example I talked about how Jamaica's building previously had advanced placement classes in history, English, math, science and second language and now the whole building (new schools included) only has one remaining AP class.  I also spoke about the great programs we had that are now gone.  I told the gathering that DOE officials are only at Bryant because the law says they have to be there to hold this meeting.  The mayor's eight appointees on the Panel for Educational Policy can outvote the five borough President appointees on every issue and the mayor's people do what DOE wants. However, I don't think this fight to keep schools open is futile.

I closed my remarks by saying that even though the situation does not look good for any of us, we can win this battle but we must take it to the state.  It was the State Legislature and Governor that gave the mayor control of the schools and the power to close schools.  The state can take that power away from the mayor today.  It's time for us to push for an end the mayoral dictatorship and an end to the mayor's right to close schools.  We need to hold the State Legislature responsible for the incalculable damage that Mayor Bloomberg is doing to the schools.  We should start this campaign immediately before more lives are ruined by this awful school governance system that is antithetical to democracy.

I truly hope that we can regain some semblance of a school system before it is too late.

BUFFALO TEACHERS HANG TOUGH

It appears the teachers in Buffalo, who have been without a contract for eight years, are hanging tough on opposing the new evaluation system.  Buffalo's teachers would not give much ground on the absurdity of rating teachers based on students who don't show up.  The union came to an agreement with the district where school wide student absenteeism had to be figured into the rating system for teachers.

When they reached this agreement with the district on evaluations, the union according to what I read then sent it to the membership.  This is right from the Buffalo News: "Teachers in every school in the district cast ballots on the proposed agreement earlier in the day; the delegates' vote was to be the final deciding factor by the union."  They emailed the agreement to members.  Why doesn't that happen in NYC on these important changes to our working conditions?

In the end State Education Commissioner John King rejected the Buffalo deal and they will lose some funding.  The point here, however, is that there are unions in New York State that are willing to stand up for their members and take risks.

We will be pulling for the Buffalo teachers if and when they fight King's move in court .

TIER 6 A HUGE DEFEAT FOR THE NEXT GENERATION

No spin from NYSUT or Leo Casey or President Mulgrew on the legislation to stick anyone hired in April or thereafter with a Tier VI pension.  (Tell any paras that haven't joined the TRS to do so immediately.)  This is another crushing defeat for working people that will yield no savings today as current employees and retirees are not impacted.

For those yet to be hired, the legislature and governor wiped away virtually all of the pension gains we made over the last thirty years.  A new teacher or new state employee will have to work until they are sixty three to receive a full pension which will only be 55% of final average salary according to what I read.  Final average salary has been increased from the average of the last five years of employment instead of three.

I remember when I started working and all of the people who were on Tier I told those of us who were on Tier IV how horrible our pension was.  Now we will have to face the Tier VI people and tell them they are in it for the real long haul if they want to make teaching a career. It is the same for other civil servants across New York State.

Think about a twenty-two year old new college graduate who wants to become a teacher.  That person will have to work forty-one years to qualify for a full pension. This is not a very pleasant prospect.

With the attack on teachers and other public employees continuing unabated, could anyone encourage a young person to get into this line of work?

What about those COPE contributions?  We don't seem to have much influence with the legislature these days.

BUFFALO TEACHERS SAY DON'T BLAME US FOR NO SHOW KIDS AND JAMAICA COLLEAGUES WRITE FOR NATIONAL BLOGS

Should teachers be held accountable for student test score gains even if the students don't show up for class?  Yes says the NYC DOE and the State Education Department but the teachers in Buffalo are putting up a resistance to the absurd notion that teachers have to drag kids out of bed and into class.

Teachers already worry about our evaluations because one never knows how kids will act when we are observed.  We don't control many of the variables that are involved in rating us. It will be much worse under the new system and there will be weakened due process.

We salute the teachers in Buffalo, and their supporters in the press, for fighting back against the ridiculous new proposed system and of course we are following closely what the Long Island principals are doing to oppose basing our rating in part on student test scores too.  It should be the UFT leading this fight.

In other news, Jamaica High School teachers and former teachers can certainly write.

Marc Epstein's latest piece on Bloomberg's legacy packs a mean punch.  You can read it at Huffington. By the way, Marc is no longer a ronin teacher as we grieved his excessing and won.  He is back at Jamaica at least for this semester.

Also, former colleague Brett Rosenthal wrote a fine piece for the Washington Post.  Brett currently is an assistant principal working for Carol Burris.  She is the woman who is leading the fight against the new evaluation system.

DA REPORT: MULGREW SPINS OBLITERATION OF TENURE AS WE KNOW IT AS A GAIN

The March Delegate Assembly was totally uneventful. In the usual marathon President's Report, Michael Mulgrew was in full spin cycle.  He said that the Teacher Data Reports in the future may or may not be open to Freedom of Information Act requests when 20% of some teachers' annual review is based on student gains in standardized test scores.

Mulgrew spent a great deal of his time then defending the appeal system that he agreed to for the new evaluation system.  The President first emphasized that the new evaluation system has not gone into effect but that there is an agreement on the appeals.  He also was emphatic that 20% of the new evaluation system will be based on student growth in test scores but that another 20% that is based on student growth and the other 60% that is based on observations and peer review and maybe other factors must be negotiated by the City and the UFT.

Then Mulgrew went into details on the appeals process.  He said that currently 99.6% of teachers lose their Unsatisfactory rating appeals in the Bloomberg era but that in pre-Bloomberg times 10-15% of teachers had their U ratings overturned in a given year.  He added that this is why the UFT agreed to allow up to 13% of those who receive ineffective ratings in the new system, when it is implemented, to appeal to an independent three person panel.  He said that these would not be reviews based on performance but rather would be reserved for teachers who receive ineffective ratings based upon being harassed by Principals because they are Chapter Leaders, other union activists or whistle blowers.

He then told us that the other 87% of those who are stuck with an ineffective rating would be observed by independent validators who are not current employees of the DOE or UFT but would have to visit the ineffective teacher three times to validate the ineffective rating.  He felt this would be a good protection for teachers.

We believe otherwise as the program looks remarkably like Peer Intervention Plus Program where outside people not employed by UFT or DOE rubber stamp the Principal's findings most of the time.  Mulgrew mentioned that if the validator concludes that the teacher is not ineffective then if the DOE wants to dismiss that teacher, then they still would carry the burden of proof in a termination hearing.

(Those teachers who have their ineffective ratings  validated will then have to prove they are not ineffective [virtually impossible to do] in the new 3020A process to keep their jobs.  We predict many people will be rated ineffective twice and validators will validate most of them and then there will be a huge backlog of people waiting to have their termination hearings.  The only thing that might save people is that there might not be enough lawyers or arbitrators available to fire so many people.)

UFT spin is that the new system is an improvement.  In reality, it fundamentally weakens tenure to the point where in the future we are all vulnerable if this ever goes into effect.  Our hope is people will collectively rise to oppose it.

Mulgrew went on to say that the Mayor is not happy with the evaluation system so he will just continue to close as many schools as he can in his last 21 months in office as he tries to become a national figure.  Mulgrew told us about the polls that have the mayor's approval rating on the schools at around 21% and the UFT's approval rating around 60%.  He said the mayor knows he can't fire teachers en masse but that his stand plays well nationally.

Mulgew then said that there is legislation in Albany that is being sponsored by Assemblyman Keith Wright, that the UFT has a resolution supporting, that would make the Community Education Council have to approve any new co-location of a school in a current school building. (I wanted to ask why the UFT has no resolution on another bill in Albany to put major checks on school closings but as usual I wasn't recognized.  It is a question worth pursuing.)

The President then told us that the City is not getting Medicaid reimbursements to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.  He then segued into talking about SESIS, reporting that assistant principals were testifying on behalf of the UFT in the SESIS grievance, although the DOE says the major issues have been fixed.

He then read a letter from a CEC member in support of teachers. Mulgrew concluded his report by talking about how he addressed a Council of Supervisors and Administrators lunch event over the weekend.

Leroy Barr then gave the Staff Director's Report where he talked about an upcoming Para event and a March 15 Day of solidarity.  Mulgrew came back to tell everyone to call Albany at (877) 255-9417 to oppose a Tier 6 pension.  He said that we have paid for every benefit we have.

He then reported on how Joel Klein was served with a subpoena to testify in a suit filed last May opposed to school closings from 2011.  A judge denied the UFT an injunction to stop the closings of many schools (including my school) last July but that he did let the case go forward.  Mulgrew said the lawyers were lining up to try to question Klein.

Questions concerned the independent validators.  Mulgrew said that possibly retirees could do the job.  He talked about counter attacking on closing schools but that we need the law changed in Albany to stop the mayor.

I again need to point out that he didn't say why the UFT had no resolution to support a change in the state law on school closings.  The other resolutions were all non controversial and all passed unanimously.

Finally, a Chapter Leader that I respect told me he reads my monthly DA reports so he knows the DA is a waste of time. While I agree with him essentially, I don't agree with non Unity people not showing up. If every Chapter Leader and Delegate who are not part of Unity Caucus would attend meetings, it probably would be a totally different union. People need to be active.

JULIE CAVANAGH, ARTHUR GOLDSTEIN AND WILLIAM JOHNSON SUCCESSFULLY TAKE ON EVALUATION SYSTEM

The NY Times and Daily News have great pieces on the folly of rating teachers by student test scores. They are written by teachers.  Julie Cavanagh is a teacher who received a highly effective teacher data report but she showed how rating teachers based on growth in student test scores is ridiculous because of a number of factors.  She calls for lower class sizes.  Julie is someone who I know well from being a fellow honoree at Leonie Haimson's Skinny Awards last year.  Julie is also one of the stars of the GEM movie "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting for Superman.

The Times published an opinion column the other day, critical of the new evaluation system, written by fellow chapter leader Arthur Goldstein and today there is an excellent piece penned by teacher Willam Johnson called Confessions of a Bad Teacher. Johnson takes on the current unsatisfactory rating system and argues that teachers become poorer instructors when administration is on their backs.  I couldn't agree more. He calls for equitable funding and claims we cannot even talk about basing our evaluations on student achievement until we distribute education money fairly.

These are three opinion articles well worth reading.  I'm almost surprised they were published considering the anti-teacher climate that has taken over the political discourse these days.  Enjoy them everyone.

UNION DOES RIGHT BY TEACHERS WHO RECEIVED LOW TDR SCORES

We criticized Leo Casey last week when we felt he was trying to sell us a lousy evaluation agreement as a professional gain.  If the UFT reaches a final agreement with Bloomberg on a new evaluation system, then tenure will be weakened considerably.  However, we also are not shy about complementing Leo and the UFT leadership when they do right by members.

Certainly Leo and the UFT leadership's defense of teachers in the aftermath  of Teacher Data Report release  is exactly what the UFT should be doing in response to publication of what is unscientific junk.  Rating teachers on how much value they add to their students based on invalid tests is wrong in so many ways. Leo's advocacy for a teacher the NY Post tried to shame because she had a low score on student growth in her TDR was terrific.  The NY Post hit a new low when they sent reporters to basically stalk this fine teacher, Pascale Mauclair, who received low ratings.

Maybe now people will understand that these TDR's with huge margins of error are a completely useless way to rate teachers. Hopefully, the thought of having an annual release of how students in a particular teacher's class do on standardized tests or other assessments will energize teachers to stand up and collectively oppose any new evaluation system that links student test scores to teacher job performance.

In other news, the Educational Impact Statements for the PLA schools the DOE wants to close on June 30 are in the process of being released and these statements are more absurd than ever.  Basically, they blame teachers for everything. Does anyone really believe that replacing at least half of the staff in these schools will lead to better education? April 26 is when the PEP will be voting to close these schools and reopening them the following day. We should all be there to say to stop this madness

We need to fight to end mayoral destruction of the public school system now before there is nothing left.

DEFENDER OF THE FAITH LEO CASEY DEFENDS INDEFENSIBLE EVALUATION AGREEMENT

UFT and NYSUT leaders (basically the same people) are obviously alarmed that their deal on evaluations for teachers is not going over that well with their members or education activists.  Besides Long Island Principal Carol Burris, who co-wrote the principal's letter objecting to the new evaluation system, and notable educational historian Diane Ravitch, who also has major concerns about teachers being rated ineffective because of student test scores, and the amazing parent activist Leonie Haimson who is out there defending teachers, we now have a NYSUT local president upstate questioning the deal and wondering why his members have to pay NYSUT dues.  The UFT leadership answers this by trotting out Leo Casey, to assuage fears and reassure everyone that all is well because the new evaluation system is actually a major step forward for the state's teachers. In New York City we have seen this movie before and it does not end well for teachers.

I read Leo's post over at EdWize and I encourage people to do the same.  He basically attacks  the work of Carol Burris, a principal who is fighting to defend teachers, particularly New York City teachers, who stand to lose the most if the new evaluation system is implemented.

Casey's main thesis seems to be that state standardized tests will only be used for 20% of the rating for many teachers but that for everything else there is nothing to be alarmed about because the entire system must be negotiated locally by each school district and their union local (NYC is one city district according to state law and the UFT is our local).

Assailed Teacher gets into the data weeds with Casey and dissects his argument in a very detailed way.  He concludes, and I agree, that Casey was not able to refute one of Carol Burris' main arguments which is that if a teacher is rated ineffective on the student growth portions (translation high stakes tests or some other nonsense evaluation that the State Education Commissioner must approve), then that teacher will be    rated ineffective overall.  I have to admit that my head is spinning trying to understand all of the minutia used by Casey, Burris, and other people as they crunch the numbers but I have concluded that it will be easier to rate teachers ineffective under the new system and that it will be much simpler to fire us as two ineffective ratings leads to a presumption of incompetence.  Many competent professionals will be terminated unless this is stopped.

In some districts throughout the state, where they have collaborative working relationships between labor and management, they might be able to come to an arrangement so that teachers won't be teaching in a climate of fear.  However, in New York City where there is a mayor who is on record saying if he had his way he would fire half of the teachers, there is basically no chance of anything being negotiated that will be fair for principals, teachers or students. Unless the next mayor is willing to clean house by getting rid of virtually all of Bloomberg's education department, there probably will not be much hope even after Bloomberg is gone.

My worst case scenario is for the UFT to finalize a deal with the City on the evaluations.  We need to tell the UFT that they should tell the mayor, governor and president that they can keep their Race to the Top money.  We want no part of it.  The alternative is the two sides negotiating a final evaluation agreement. History tells us that whenever the UFT goes into negotiations with Bloomberg, we lose. The evidence supporting this statement is overwhelming over the last decade.  For salary increases that have not even kept up with the cost of living, we have seen teaching and learning conditions deteriorate dramatically through collective bargaining with Bloomberg.

Look at 2002 where a contract agreement extended the school day and left the extended time up to management.  The deal was so bad it had to be renegotiated several times in subsequent years.  2002 also brought us the counseling memo, the ability of arbitrators to rewrite letters in the file and weakened due process.

Then, in 2005, the UFT agreed to a contract with a long list of givebacks such as a longer day with an extra small group instruction period, a return of lunch and hall duty for teachers, an end to grievances for unfair/inaccurate material in teacher files, further weakening of due process so teachers could be suspended without pay based on a probable cause hearing, expedited time and attendance 3020A hearings, and of course the end to seniority and School Based Option transfers, which paved the way for the perpetual Absent Teacher Reserve crisis. Last year the UFT exacerbated this problem by agreeing to allow ATRS to be moved on a weekly basis from school to school to avoid layoffs (We also gave up sabbaticals for next year).

Does anyone really believe that the Department of Education will negotiate a fair evaluation process that is teacher friendly and promotes professional growth?  As the saying goes, "Those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them." Reading Leo Casey defend this indefensible evaluation system gives me that eerie sense of deja vu.  In 2005, Leo attacked people like me for criticizing the 2005 giveback laden contract. History has vindicated our view but Casey is at it again.

Let us examine some of what Mr. Casey said in 2005 when he was promoting that awful contract.  He claimed: "Seniority in lay-offs is a core union principle. We could not accept a contract which did not secure the rights of senior excessed teachers to a position in another school."  Tell that to the ATRs.

I ask Leo to look at his next statement justifying the 2005 contract in a section called "What Did We Turn Back?" closely before he writes his next piece on evaluations:

"The DOE demanded an end to tenure, an end to the ‘just cause’ standard for a teacher’s dismissal, and an end to having independent arbitrators hear and decide cases for a teacher’s dismissal. The Chancellor wanted the burden of proof in dismissal cases to be shifted to the teacher, who would have to demonstrate that she was a satisfactory teacher who should not be dismissed, rather than the DOE having to show that she was unsatisfactory and should not be dismissed." (Bold added by me.)

Didn't NYSUT support the  change in law that shifts the burden of proof to teachers just as former Chancellor Joel Klein wanted back in 2005 and won't the bulk of our appeals under the new system be exactly as Klein wanted them?

Leo has flip-flopped on using student test scores to rate teachers as well.  Leo's previous position on using student test scores to rate teachers is in this piece from 2008, that I thank Phillip Nobile for finding. Leo stated: "The DoE has no contractual or legal authority to use test score data in the evaluation of teachers, and the UFT will oppose it with all the means at our disposal. This is a line in the sand for the UFT."  I guess the line shifted a bit.  

It goes on and on.  

The NY Post, the Daily News, E 4 ME (Educators for Excellence) and all of the anti teacher and anti union forces are coming out in favor of the new evaluation agreement.  People like Diane Ravitch, Aaron Pallas, Leonie Haimson, Carol Burris and other enlightened thinkers are raising the red flags all over the place.  You would think the UFT would be smart enough to know where to line up.

However, that would contradict the doctrine of Unity Caucus (UFT leadership) Infallibility so instead of doing what is right by the membership, Leo Casey is out again playing the role of Defender of the Faith, telling us why the new evaluation agreement is a victory for us.  I can't wait to see his encyclical on how  the appeal process is such a big win too.

This is in no way a personal attack on Leo Casey.  In fact it is quite the opposite.  Having to defend the indefensible as Leo has done is not an easy task but someone in Unity has to do it every time they make our working lives worse, which unfortunately is way too often. Judging by results in UFT elections, where Unity always wins big, he is doing his job very well. However after having to stand up to numerous criticisms of his latest piece on EdWize, hopefully he will go back to President Mulgrew and the NYSUT people and call for a change of direction.

LONG ISLAND PRINCIPAL CONTINUES FIGHT AGAINST NEW EVALUATION SYSTEM

Carol Corbett Burris is a principal in Rockville Centre, Long Island.  One of my former colleagues at Jamaica works for her and is very satisfied. Close to a third of the principals in New York State have signed the letter Burris co-wrote exposing the flaws in the new evaluation system.

At the Washington Post Answer Sheet education blog run by Valerie Strauss, Burris hammers home how excellent teachers will be rated ineffective by the new evaluation system.  Why isn't the UFT leading this fight?

Shifting the Burden of Proof and Proving a Negative: How the Fundamental Structure of Tenure Has Been Eviscerated

In the wake of the new agreement (not fully implemented in our school district yet) it has become apparent that we have lost a major part of one of our few remaining job protections. Back in the early part of her UFT presidency, I once asked Randi Weingarten, in a union training session, whether there was any issue that she could foresee recommending to the membership that we strike. Without hesitation she howled, “Tenure! After all,” she argued, “what is more central to our job protection?”

While the protections afforded by teacher tenure have been modified over the Weingarten negotiated contracts and we have argued vociferously against those changes, they have not fundamentally changed tenure as has these Mulgrew negotiated concessions have.

Tenure, plain and simple, is the right to a due process hearing consistent with our long history of jurisprudence before a teacher (or other tenured civil servant) can be disciplined or terminated.  A tenured teacher, after all, has demonstrated their competence by obtaining tenure (a three year process) and otherwise performing satisfactorily. The law provides that should the DOE believe the teacher is incompetent it must prove (has the burden of proof and the burden of going forward) that the teacher is incompetent. The teacher has the right not to testify and no finding can be made against the teacher for asserting this right. As in most of our legal tradition the burdens never shift or change.

While the specific language has not been published, based on Mulgrew’s own statements, the New York Times coverage of the agreement and press releases from all involved it is clear that the new agreement changes tenure in some very fundamental ways.

First the shift. Many legal scholars have commented on the absurd difficulty of proving a negative. How does one prove they are competent? Can you do this without testifying? What evidence could you show? Could you ask the arbitrator to observe your lesson?

The real problem in the shift of the burdens is the fact that when the validator (that term is part of the  “anti-tenure new-speak” explained below) determines the teacher is incompetent the onus on the teacher will strip the hearing of any sense of due process. Just where the Mayor wants it.

Hey, Randi, are you recommending strike?

Anti-tenure new speak

The new agreement has brought at least 3 terms we have not seen before. The terms are subtle but reflect how the language has changed to support this radical loss of teacher protection.

Validator- a supposed neutral person hired to observe the alleged incompetent teacher who will have an 80 to 100 teacher caseload to determine if the principal’s ineffective rating is supported. A validator validates, meaning they operated under the assumption that the charged teacher is ineffective. In New Haven, where this concept was borrowed, validators evaluated both highly effective and ineffective teachers to determine evaluative characteristics. When a principal shoves a teacher in the most difficult classes or programs a teacher in a difficult way, will this be taken into account. How about teachers who are “not team players” another one of my favorite evaluative phrases. With up to 100 cases and three observations a year per teacher the “validator” clearly will not be in a position for remediation, a current teacher right under the tenure law.

Ineffective – The current tenure law speaks of incompetence and does not mention ineffectiveness. While the shift is subtle it does expose a major shift in teacher evaluation. The measurement of ineffectiveness has already been put out there as based on test scores. Will test scores be admissible in an incompetency hearing? Currently they are not.

The 13% - While not directly relevant to tenure (I couldn’t resist commenting on this) the new agreement proposes that initial ineffective ratings be reviewed by the Union and 13% of these ratings, believed by the Union to be motivated by other than incompetency, be referred to an “independent body” who, unlike the DOE’s kangaroo court, has the power to reverse the rating. The number is based, according to published reports, on the number of reversals of unsatisfactory ratings pre-Bloomberg. While I concede that labor-management agreements often lack logical explanation this one is a beaut. The Union, under this procedure, is put in a total conflict of interest. While grievance arbitration has always been somewhat discretionary by the Union, never before has such decisions have such a strong impact on a member’s job. Under the pre-Bloomberg 13% teachers, at least, had a due process hearing to look forward. What are we looking at now?

EVALUATION AGREEMENT BAD NEWS FOR TENURED TEACHERS

The UFT and New York State United Teachers (All of the local unions in the state) gave away the store in today's agreements with the city and the State Education Department concerning teacher evaluations. This is part of a 2010 law that New York State passed to try to get Federal Race to the Top money. Details had to be negotiated with unions.  While we still don't have a final agreement on a new evaluation system in New York City, what is emerging is a system with few safeguards that has the potential to allow the Department of Education to terminate many tenured teachers starting in 2014.

At the state level, the NYSUT lawsuit on evaluations was resolved by today's agreement with the state. 40% of a teacher's annual rating will be based upon student performance on tests, with half of that 40% being standardized tests and the other half being locally developed assessments (whatever that means) that the State Education Department must approve.  The other 60% will be based on subjective measures such as principal observations and they can throw in some peer review, parent review or student review if the local district and union want to.  

The overall grade to achieve a passing rating for the year will be 65. Scores of 0-64 will result in an ineffective rating, 65-74 will mean a developing rating, 75-90 will mean an effective rating and 91-100 will translate into highly effective.  However, if a teacher is rated ineffective in the student test score portion, the teacher cannot get a passing grade.  Also, if a principal doesn't like a teacher and does hatchet jobs in observations, it appears to me that huge test score gains will not save the teacher.  There are so many ways to fail teachers here. 

People say we shouldn't worry because we have tenure but two ineffective ratings in a row shifts the burden of proof onto the teacher to prove that he/she is not incompetent.  That will not be easy. One wonders why NYSUT would agree to any of this and not just tell the State to turn down the federal money that we would lose if there was no agreement.

As for New York City, the UFT held out in negotiations with the city for a stronger appeal process for teachers rated ineffective.  The DOE walked out of negotiations during the Christmas break and proceeded to announce that they would close most of the transformation-restart schools that were supposed to be the first to use the new evaluation system.  The UFT wanted teachers rated ineffective to have a review before an independent arbitrator while the DOE held that teachers should have a review by the Chancellor like the U rating appeal process where teachers lose 99.6% of these appeals. 

The compromise that was reached today was, as usual, an almost total capitulation by the union.  13% of teachers rated ineffective can have an appeal before a three person panel. One of the panel members will be chosen by the union, one by DOE and the third person will be selected by the first two.  That is truly an independent appeal process but according to President Mulgrew's email to us, "The union can identify up to 13% of all ineffective ratings each year to challenge on grounds of harassment or other matters not related to performance."  It will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prove harassment if the students didn't succeed on the tests or a teacher's performance in class was rated ineffective by the principal.  Also, it is the UFT who decides which teachers get to have their case heard by the independent panel.  There will be no favoritism there right? It gets worse.

The other 87% rated ineffective can only appeal to the chancellor just like the current U rating appeal process.  One does not need a crystal ball to predict that teachers will continue to have virtually no chance in these hearings.  However the UFT says don't worry because, "A teacher who has an ineffective rating the following year will receive an independent validator.  (The person is chosen through a joint process and will not be a UFT or DOE employee.)  The independent evaluator will observe the teacher at least three times during the school year and issue a report with his or her rating of the teacher."  

This process sounds eerily like Peer Intervention Plus to me.  In PIP+ people not employed by UFT or DOE observe U rated teachers and basically rubber stamp the U's in most cases. In the new system if the validator agrees that the teacher is not ineffective, then that evidence can be used in a 3020A hearing (tenure process) to help the teacher as the burden of proof would then fall on the DOE but if the validator validates the ineffective rating as they usually do in PIP+, then the teacher would carry the burden of proof in the tenure hearing and the chances of staying on the job will be slim and none in my opinion. 

Tenure will be significantly weakened if this evaluation system is finalized.  The local assessments and other details still have to be negotiated by the UFT and DOE.  A best case scenario is that there will never be an agreement on the local assessments and this whole new evaluation process will then collapse under the weight of its stupidity.  What are going to be the assessments for teachers in non regents subjects in the high school for example? 

The only way to stop any of this from going into effect is for us to raise our collective voices loudly and say that we're not going to voluntarily walk into the guillotine.  If today's agreement becomes our actual teacher evaluation system, then there will more than likely be massive teacher firings beginning in 2014.  

If there is anything positive to take from today's events, it's that President Mulgrew was there with the governor announcing the deal and maybe they are developing the kind of bond we can use to influence the state to pass legislation to end mayoral control now before the school system is completely destroyed.

PS-For those expecting our monthly Delegate Assembly report, I was stuck on the platform waiting for the 7 train for a long time yesterday, as a train was stuck one station ahead, so I missed most of the DA.  The resolutions that passed were not controversial and some of the Presidents' report, I am told, was about the evaluation issue so I am skipping doing a report which today is obsolete.  If anyone else wants to do it, email me at savejamaicahighschool@gmail.com and I will post it.

PEP SCHOOL CLOSING FIASCO: SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO?

For the fourth time in the last three years, I attended a school closing Panel for Educational Policy meeting at Brooklyn Tech.  At last Thursday's meeting there were 23 schools facing the chopping block or grade truncation.  The script is familiar.  Masses of people come from the schools slated for closure to advocate for their schools and protest the closures.  DOE officials respond that these schools are horrible places and families need better options.  Then, the mayor's appointees on the PEP ignore the public and dutifully fulfill their role and rubber stamp the phase outs.

Last Thursday followed the script to the letter but it was still a rather unique experience for me as the protesters were split about how to voice displeasure with the process.  On one side was the UFT which wanted to stage a huge walk out (or not even show up at all inside the school) and hold an alternate people's PEP meeting while on the other side was the Occupy DOE crowd that includes students, parents, teachers and other activists who wanted to drown out the PEP so they would have to stop the meeting and not be able to vote to close the schools.  This dispute was covered on video and by GothamSchools.org.  Many people were happy that the Occupy DOE crowd won out as the UFT leaders did enter the meeting and never held their alternative PEP meeting.  From my perspective both sides need to examine closely what happened and learn from the experience.

For UFT officials, they hopefully will learn that they cannot control every event as if it were a Delegate Assembly meeting where many of the delegates are predisposed to follow their lead just like the PEP puppets blindly do the Mayor's bidding. Watching them lose control of the protest was something I have never seen nor have they. The Occupy DOE  people did not succeed in shutting the meeting down.  Using the people's mic, where people say something and the crowd repeats it. in that huge auditorium will not drown out a good electronic amplification system.  By posting their intentions to try to shut the meeting down all over the internet, Occupy DOE gave the DOE time to plan.

The DOE strategy for the meeting was to turn up the volume on the official microphone and just wait the protesters out while blanketing the auditorium with police officers. This succeeded as the Occupy DOE crowd burned out so people ended up for the most part walking out like the UFT wanted and the meeting went on with an eerie calm setting in.

In 2010, so many people spoke out against school closings so that the vote to close schools wasn't held until after 3:00 am.  Last year there were two PEP school closing meetings since there were so many schools closed at once. The first one on February 1 didn't end until after 1:00 am.  At the second meeting on February 3, all of the frustration from the public against the PEP led to a loud walkout which did stop the meeting for a time.  Following the walkout, the PEP was able to spout out their lies about our schools to a nearly empty auditorium. At least we were all able to arrive home at a reasonable hour.

Hence, the debate this year about whether to stay or go.  There were only about 75 people left in that huge auditorium when the PEP voted to close or shrink 23 schools last week.  I was one of them.  I stayed along with Norm Scott, a Chapter Leader friend and his friend.  I actually kind of wish there were more people there for the vote as I still get sickened each time the PEP votes to kill a school.  The DOE needs to hear about the havoc that their policies are causing to school communities even if these DOE officials won't listen.  They need to know about the kids who are casualties of school reform: those left behind in phasing out schools.  75 people yelling "shame on you" late at night is not sufficient.

I did not take to the electronic microphone as the Occupy DOE and UFT people seemed not to want us to speak.  However, I did see Manhattan PEP representative Patrick Sullivan and told him about what is occurring at Jamaica High School where the kids are totally demoralized as the school phases out.  They are not getting the courses they need; many are being taught by out of license teachers; many are not getting proper English as a Second Language or Special Education services and they are being pushed out of school in droves.  Patrick raised some of these issues during the discussion and the DOE had no answers. 

I think we should not let the DOE or PEP off the hook. Yes the process is a sham and the mayor's appointees will say yes to anything the mayor wants. However, these people need to be told how they are ruining the education of so many young people.  I'll explain how awful the teaching and learning conditions continue to be at Jamaica in some detail and how we are continuing the fight in a later post.  As for last Thursday, I want to believe we all learned something.

VIDEO AT WASHINGTON IRVING CLOSING HEARING OTHERWISE KNOWN AS GROUNDHOG DAY

It is appropriate that the videos from the school closing Joint Public Hearing for Washington Irving were sent to me on Ground Hog Day.  In the movie with that title, Bill Murray has to live the same day over and over again.

School closing hearings are eerily similar with teachers, students, parents and union officials making great cases on behalf of their schools and DOE officials ignoring them.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jgVOkF7xg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUy5QxZ2-bk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPgg3t4YaYg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPvFPgoUvaw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6uRFWrRYEI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ek0lrJ9ErxA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hieKhnsMHXg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESiDlgwIoNg

POLICE CRIME STATISTICS ARE AS PHONY AS EDUCATION STATISTICS

Professor Eli Silverman and my brother Professor John Eterno have written a fascinating new book explaining problems with data driven crime fighting.  They expose the myths of the miracle crime reductions we have supposedly seen in recent years and its impact on policy.

In their peer reviewed research study that is featured in their book: The Crime Numbers Game: Management by Manipulation, they have discovered that many retired captains admitted that they fudged the numbers during their careers to make crime statistics look good because of the Compstat data system.  Police performance reviews have been based on high stakes crime reports since the nineties.

As a result, it seems that the police crime statistics are about as reliable today as numbers coming from the Department of Education. If there is so little crime, the authors then wonder why stop and frisks, which are supposed to be based upon reasonable suspicion. are up to over 600,000 a year from around 90,000 a short while back.

Professor Diane Ravitch contributed a blurb on the back jacket of the book and prominent criminologists are praising it.  You can go to John and Eli's website and pick the book up at a discount.  It is well worth reading.

This story needs to be reported by the mainstream press. Do you think they will have the guts to run with it and tackle Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly? The NY Times reported recently on a study that concluded that a decent teacher replacing a lousy teacher can add $250 a year for earnings even when this study was not yet peer reviewed. Will they report on this book too?

My brother and Dr Silverman made a splash in 2010 when they first released their preliminary findings and now they have dealt with the reaction to their study and its implications.

It is becoming ever more clear that New York City government today is a public relations firm masquerading as a government.

DA REPORT: DEMOCRACY DEFEATED AGAIN BY UNITY

The Unity majority brought out the retired troops to Wednesday’s Delegate Assembly (I saw people I   have not seen in years) to make sure they had enough votes to pass an amendment to the UFT Constitution to expand the Executive Board and add to the voting power of the retirees in UFT elections. I voted no on the amendments as they will limit democracy even further as UFT elections for retired members are essentially rigged. 

As usual I was not able to get the floor to speak to counter the Unity propaganda machine’s salute to the union’s retired members.  President Mulgrew framed the issue by saying that it was necessary to change the Constitution because the UFT has grown so much over the years with the addition of the Child Care Providers who recently joined us and the expansion of the Retiree Chapter.  He was right and adding twelve seats to the 89 seat Executive Board does make sense.  Also, putting a committee together to discuss a possible new vice president for the non teaching members of the UFT seems logical.  However, adding to the weight of the retiree vote in UFT elections is extremely unfair and undemocratic even though I agree with Mulgrew that the retired members are very helpful in our mobilization efforts.

Before Wednesday, the retiree vote in any UFT election was capped at 18,000.  This means that if more than 18,000 voted, the tally was capped at 18,000 and the voting numbers were based on 18,000.  For example, let’s say 20,000 retirees voted and 10,000 voted for caucus A and 10,000 vote for caucus B.  Since the vote was capped at 18,000, Caucus A would receive 9,000 votes in the election and Caucus B would get 9,000. 

This obviously flies in the face of the principle of one person=one vote but the union did not want its retired members to dominate, hence the cap.  The amendment raises that cap to 23,500.  This number is not that far off from the number of active teachers who actually vote so the retirees basically now control the union.  That is not healthy at all but it is worse because any opposition group has virtually no legal right to reach out to retirees.

In 1997, New Action (a caucus within the UFT) filed a complaint with the state Public Employees Relations Board asking for the names and addresses of all the retirees so the caucus could send election materials to them.  PERB dismissed the charge.  In his account of the dismissal, PERB’s Phillip L. Maier said, “The Board affirmed the Director’s dismissal of the charge as deficient on the grounds that retirees are not public employees under the Act, do not have any terms and conditions of employment and are not in the UFT’s bargaining unit.  Therefore, the UFT owed no duty to New Action to supply this information.” (Phillip L. Maier: The Taylor Law and the Duty to Fair Representation)  If retirees are not in our bargaining unit, then why can they vote at all for who represents the actual members of the bargaining unit?  They should vote for their own vice president. 

Let’s get this straight:  Retirees are not in the UFT’s bargaining unit but retirees have a huge say in deciding who will represent the active members of the bargaining unit.  On top of this, an opposition caucus has no right to addresses (or emails I presume) to send out election literature.  That is an incredibly unfair election process.

Unity argues that it is a fair process because they run an election advertisement for each caucus at every election. They never mention that the ad is buried in the NY Teacher newspaper once every three years. 

Imagine this on a national scale: Suppose that only the Republican Party was allowed to contact the voters in almost half the states and they said this was fair because they put in an advertisement once every three years for the Democrats but the rest of the time they just flood them with their own literature.  That is basically the election process for the UFT. The New York Teacher is fundamentally a Unity Caucus publication that is filled with scores of pictures and stories about Mulgrew and the leadership every two weeks.  When election time comes, the opposition gets its two page ad.  Any political science student knows this is not sufficient contact for a serious campaign.  Essentially, UFT elections at the retiree level are rigged.  In the schools it is a little different which is why opposition groups have successfully won the high schools and even once the middle schools.

The infamous Stalin once claimed that it isn’t who votes that matters; it’s who counts the votes.  For the UFT, it is a matter of who has access to the voters.  Since only the Unity leadership has the names and addresses of retirees and an opposition group is not entitled to send literature to what is essentially half of the actual voters, an opposition caucus cannot possibly make the number of contacts that any political scientist would say would be necessary to have a reasonable chance to win an election.

Unity called out the retirees en masse on Wednesday to make sure the amendment to increase the retiree voting percentage passed and it carried overwhelmingly.  I raised my card but never had the opportunity to speak to make the points I just made above on why increasing the retiree share of the vote is just an insurance policy for the Unity Caucus, which has ruled the UFT for around half a century. 

Perhaps Unity is worried that the active membership has finally had it with their policies as we are under siege in the schools and so we might rebel against Unity.  The retirees who are spread out all over the country (and abroad) but can only be reached by Unity (except for one advertisement every three years) give them some nice insurance just in case the active membership comes alive.

As for the rest of the meeting, there was only a report from the President as we left early to head off to Brooklyn for the Panel for Educational Policy Meeting to protest the latest round of indefensible school closings and the DOE walking out of negotiations on evaluations.

In his report, President Mulgrew said that the current unsatisfactory rating appeal process was corrupt and keeping it was a non starter in negotiations.  He went on to tell us that the city is trying to split the union and this will be another ugly fight.  He continued by noting that he wants to settle the NYSUT lawsuit on evaluations but it looks like State Education Commissioner John King is supporting the mayor which makes it difficult.  He told us the Governor wants the lawsuit settled and many districts upstate are just waiting for a negotiated settlement.  He also told us to expect a pounding from the Daily News and NY Post but that he enjoys it and the membership understands it.  He said we have to do the grassroots work in the communities and that he has full faith that the union will not be divided. 

On pensions he told us that we have paid for every pension benefit we have and we will not surrender our benefits.  He then talked about appointing a committee to add another officer for the UFT since the functional chapters are growing.  Then he motivated the Constitutional amendments.  Subsequently, Mark Torres called a point of order and demanded that Mulgrew leave the chair since he motivated a resolution. Mulgrew turned the chair over to Secretary Michael Mendel for what was the usual mostly one sided pro Unity debate.

The body then voted overwhelmingly for the amendments (no surprise there) and we left to head to the PEP where Mendel and VP Leo Casey made emotional presentations attacking the DOE.  Mendel asked the DOE how they sleep at night and Casey said that just as the DOE walked out on us in negotiations over the evaluation system, we were now walking out on them. 

Overall it was just one more nauseating afternoon and evening as a DOE employee and UFT Chapter Leader.

BLOOMBERG GOES AFTER US AGAIN

Mayor Bloomberg made attacking teachers the centerpiece of his state of the city address last week.  His attacks are tired and getting old as are the constant NY Post and Daily News editorials blasting teachers.

A quick little walk through the last three years shows we are his favorite target.  First there was no raise for us even though virtually all the other unions have received two raises of 4% in the current round of collective bargaining.  Then, it was two straight years of layoff threats that included the mayor's failed push to change state law so he could fire us at will. Now the mayor wants us to have weaker due process without appeal to an independent reviewer and since he can't get his way, he is now attempting to close most of the Transformation-Restart Schools and open them up the following day with half of the teachers being replaced.

It would be comical if the lives of so many UFT members and students were not impacted.  As I read our contract, he can redesign schools based on Article 18D, which allows management to excess at least half of the teachers in a given school.  Whether he can do this as part of the Federal Turnaround program without first negotiating it with the UFT is highly debatable and will more than likely be decided in the courts or by the state Public Employees Relations Board.

I have some ideas on what the union can do to help the teachers in the 33 PLA-Restart Schools that will necessitate us being a real union.  Maybe the UFT will do more than just use the legal system and local protests.  It's time.

The teachers in the Restart schools and citywide need to know that we are dealing with a desperate billionaire mayor who will do just about anything to get rid of us.  The mayor's plan is irrational.  If he excesses half of the staffs in many schools but our contract and state law prevents tenured people from being terminated without cause (thank God), then there will be an explosion of Absent Teacher Reserves.  It appears that the mayor is willing to spend an additional $100,000,000 on an expanded Absent Teacher Reserve pool (regular teachers who roam from school to school each week at full pay but cover classes for absent teachers) to obtain $60,000,000 in Federal funds.  Can city hall do math or does the mayor have a Captain Ahab like obsession?

The mayor seems overly determined to bust the UFT.  This will probably be his last chance as his time will run out at the end of 2013 and there doesn't seem to be any call for another extension of term limits this time around.  He needs to kill us off now or never.  He looks desperate but do not underestimate the forces that want to destroy public education and the UFT.

 ... to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.

—Moby-Dick, Ch. 135 or is that Michael Bloomberg talking to teachers?

LEO CASEY COMPARES U RATING APPEAL PROCESS TO STALIN SHOW TRIALS

Great post at EdWize on why we need a neutral review for ineffective ratings.  VP for high schools Leo Casey said the UFT has has done the research and found that UFT members won 10 of the last 2,000 U rating appeals.  That's a .05% success rate. Interesting that  he compares the DOE review process to a Stalin show trial.

Another good piece over there was the one Casey wrote saying that the study showing that having good teachers increases student earnings was not peer reviewed yet it was released to the public. In addition, Jackie Bennett's work on how closing schools are set up to fail is also enlightening reading.

I have not been a big fan of Edwize since the 2005 propaganda pieces selling the horrible contract but I will say that some of this stuff going up nowadays is quite helpful.

UFT CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES NOTHING BUT A POWER GRAB BY UNITY

Last Saturday, I received  the agenda for the January 18, 2012 Delegate Assembly well in advance.  It contained two proposed constitutional amendments that won't do anything to make the UFT a more democratic union.  The UFT Executive Board, which has the constitutional responsibility for running the organization, will be expanded from 89 to 101 members.  The reason to add to the Executive Board is that the UFT is growing with the addition of the Family Child Care Providers and many new retirees.  Therefore, I agree that it does make sense to add to the Executive Board.  However, the Executive Board is one of the least democratic institutions in the world because of the at large system of voting for most of the seats that in such a huge union makes it virtually impossible to challenge the incumbents.

Most of the Executive Board and all 11 officers (president, vice presidents, etc...) are elected at large which means all members of the union vote for each position.  At large voting allows a retiree or a non Department of Education Family Child Care Provider to be voting for the high school vice president and most of the other people who represent the high schools.  This is ridiculous.  It is just as absurd for a high school teacher like me to be voting for someone to represent the Family Child Care Providers.

A better amendment would have been to put in place some kind of proportional representation system so that if a caucus (political party) receives a certain amount of votes (say 25%) in any UFT election, then that caucus would get that percentage (25%) of the seats on the Executive Board.  That is a fair system but you won't see that happening because the leadership of the Unity Caucus, which has run the UFT since the sixties and has a monumental financial advantage in every election, would have to deal with smaller groups who have support concentrated among certain UFT members.  Having that kind of diversity on the Executive Board would make us a stronger union as more voices would be heard but it would dilute the power of the ruling caucus so don't expect such an amendment to see the light of day.  Also, restoring the right of each division (high school, middle schools, elementary schools, special education) to exclusively elect their own vice presidents will not happen because the ruling caucus would have to admit that they might lose some day.

Expanding the voting representation of the retirees is simply a Unity Caucus insurance policy to expand their power. The retired UFT members are the most loyal Unity constituency so expanding their voice makes sense to Unity.  However, whether or not retirees should vote for active member leaders is highly debatable.  The New York State Public Relations Relations Board took up the retiree topic in 1997.

New Action (another caucus within the UFT) said the UFT should give them a list of retirees so they could mail the retired members UFT election material.  PERB said that since the retirees are not part of our bargaining unit, then no caucus was entitled to their addresses.  Since the state does not recognize retirees as not part of our bargaining unit, then one has to ask why they should be voting for who will represent active members?   Retirees should have their own vice president that they elect exclusively to represent them.

The retiree vote was capped at 18,000, meaning that if more than 18,000 voted, the votes are weighted so 18,000 is the maximum.  That cap will be raised by the amendment to 23,500.  Forgetting the issue with one man=one vote, this is a pure power grab by the ruling caucus to make sure that their loyal retirees have even more of a voice than they do now.  The active people will be further marginalized. What is really needed is to alter the UFT's fundamental foundation.

The structure of our union is basically designed to perpetuate one party rule forever and these amendments will worsen this.  In order to win an election with close to 200,000 voters spread out over many states, a caucus would need a ton of money to have a reasonable chance to communicate with so many members enough times to make a difference.  The Unity Caucus has the union patronage jobs and free trips to union conventions to buy loyalty and those people spread the word in the schools and in retirement communities. To obtain those perks, Unity members must sign a statement saying they will support the positions of Unity Caucus in union and public forums.  Many have termed this statement the Unity Loyalty Oath.  They also must pay to join the caucus.

One ad in the NY Teacher at election time is all the opposition is allowed and that is certainly not enough to get through to these masses of people to win an election.  The UFT structure is extremely unfair and these amendments will not change that.  Adding to the retiree vote total will just further alienate more of us.

I will be voting no on the constitutional amendments. It makes no sense to expand the Executive Board without changing how it is structured and expanding the retiree vote will not strengthen us.

Had the union really taken democracy seriously, they would have put together a committee with membership from all parties and independents and come up with a more democratic structure.